Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Trial Available Now on EA Access, Post Your Impressions

[turbineseaplane]

(nodding) Yeah, that's a really good point, fair enough. But you can't argue about the sameness of all the processes, cut scenes, cameras, effects, etc. It just seems so weird to me that they rewrote the game from scratch, and decided to make it JUST LIKE previous games in so many ways. But I'll take your word for it, all good.

Yep - And a step back in many eyes in terms of where the challenge and difficulty was at in TW14 Sim mode. I was hoping for the next generation of that mode in particular as it was some of my favorite virtual golf EVER on any game or platform.

[maltliquor23]

Yes - But they also have very deliberately avoided telling us any details at all about what & when might ever get changed....

"Not Annual" could just mean "this is the core game" and we'll keep pumping out DLC for the next 18 months, but it definitely doesn't mean they necessarily will change anything much about how the currently released game plays. :-(

The quote i linked stated

"maybe PGA Tour 17 will be a full featured game"

I was only advising that this is not an annual release. But please continue to read more into my statements beyond what i said.

[Chairman7w]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Trial Available Now on EA Access, Post Your Impressions

Yep - And a step back in many eyes in terms of where the challenge and difficulty was at in TW14 Sim mode. I was hoping for the next generation of that mode in particular as it was some of my favorite virtual golf EVER on any game or platform.

I love TW14, the only thing keeping me from playing more often is the load times. But I still play it, for sure. I got all the DLC courses, and I really enjoy it.

[Beelzebot44]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Trial Available Now on EA Access, Post Your Impressions

The quote i linked stated

"maybe PGA Tour 17 will be a full featured game"

I was only advising that this is not an annual release. But please continue to read more into my statements beyond what i said.

If PGA 17 comes out, that won't be annual. This is PGA 15.

[turbineseaplane]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Trial Available Now on EA Access, Post Your Impressions

The quote i linked stated

"maybe PGA Tour 17 will be a full featured game"

I was only advising that this is not an annual release.

Ok - I guess I'm not sure what you saying exactly...

If it's not an Annual game I simply don't know what to expect from EA, and they don't seem too interested in commenting either way themselves.

If "not annual" just means "new core game every 2 years instead of 1" and DLC to hold you over - No interest and it's really not any better than annual releases.

The whole thing everyone wants from "not annual" is actual substantive updates to the game in between major new versions. I hope EA does that, but, as I said, I'm 100% "wait and see" with EA.

[cneuy3]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Trial Available Now on EA Access, Post Your Impressions

Yep - And a step back in many eyes in terms of where the challenge and difficulty was at in TW14 Sim mode. I was hoping for the next generation of that mode in particular as it was some of my favorite virtual golf EVER on any game or platform.

Sim wise this game is a step backwards, REALLY sad that the second ball isn't there for the impact. Bad lies made it difficult to keep the cursor on the ball and made game much more sim, also how far behind you the ball you wanted to hit bunker shots, etc. This is the single biggest step backwards in the game, now it's just figure out the percentages like most other golf games.

Put everything on hardest difficulty and after a little practice I just shot 64 at Sawgrass, and I play FAST, I don't grind out the numbers, tap, tap, tap, left and right and up and down for distance and boom I swing. That was with using right stick to swing by the way.

This game is more like 13 than 14, once you figure out the timing for the tee shots, fairways are a given. I was getting slow readings on the backswing, but with time you figure out the timing. 13 was a fairway fest and so is this game. 14 to a lesser extent, which made 14 the better game.

LOVED the short game in 14, this game is MUCH easier. Just aim shorter on the pitches straight back straight through and you're getting up and down like nothing. Bunker shots too, was almost holing out for eagles on par 5's at sawgrass and had tap ins. Already holed a couple chip ins and most others simple tap ins.

The loss of the forced non straight back straight through swing makes it too easy. Of note though using shot shaping seems much harder than past games. You will hit some really wild ones, so haven't mastered that part of it yet like I did with 14. Problem is you rarely need to shape shots.

The only way to make this game hard/sim is to FORCE yourself to shape shots even though you don't need to to go low, and to turn the wind way up and make the course itself hard with rock hard fairways and fast greens. So it is kind of an artificial/forced difficulty spike instead of a more sim out of the box game like 14.

I really wish this game was a continuation of 14, but it's more like 13 or a step back from 13, it's just too easy to paint the up and down swing. Perhaps that's a controller issue or perhaps in future updates EA can add a hyper sensitive setting to make the game harder, or a little more random on the miss hits. Guys, we really need the second ball back and even off the tee, let's say the wind is blowing or it's raining the second cursor should move a little, it's not as easy to hit your tee shots square in real life off the tee when the wind is blowing or it's raining.

Graphics are nice, commentary good. Just sad that I will have to "rig" the game/give myself artificial house rules to make the game hard. EA was SO CLOSE with 14 to giving us a great sim. Let's hope future updates will help the game move in the direction I and I assume you other sim golfers want the game to be.

Will I buy the game? Of course, and all the DLC like I always do, don't get me wrong the game is fun, but I think I just gave you a good overview of what the game is right now in it's current state.

Thanks for the impressions guys. I felt very much the same about TW14. Really enjoyed the challenge of that game playing on Simulation mode. I'm really disappointed to hear that there is no second ball display. I thought that really did accurately simulate the difficulty of hitting out of more difficult lies. I'm fine with them creating and starting over with a new engine but they should have brought over most of the better aspects of the simulation mode in TW14, second ball display being a huge one.

I have this game on pre-order already and I'm excited to hear that EA will be updating it over time. I remember posting awhile back one of the main issues that didn't like about TW14 were the forced ball drops; sometimes in terrible drop areas where it was almost as if you were hitting out of the hazard. I'm glad they listened to me and others and improved and fixed that in this current release. Hopefully they're able to improve on a lot of the other issues brought about in this thread.

I know there were people that thought the default simulation mode in TW14 was too difficult with no wind HuD displayed, no target zoom, no green grid but I thought it brought about a really fun challenge where my scores often emulated real life pros. I never won a major and normally was only able to get one or two wins per year. I was able to win the "Canadian Open" or whatever the tourney was called at Banff Springs almost every year for some reason Other than that I was just a top 30 to 40 golfer in the mix. It was a real challenge. I'm hoping I can once again get that challenge from EA Rory Mcilroy PGA Tour.

[turbineseaplane]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Trial Available Now on EA Access, Post Your Impressions

Just going back to the actual source of the "it's not an annual release" news...

http://www.operationsports.com/news/...ntent-updates/


Honestly - There is simply nothing in there that would lead anyone to believe the actual gameplay itself will get tweaked at all - Every single thing is inferring updates to content (courses, golfers and gear).

[cneuy3]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Trial Available Now on EA Access, Post Your Impressions

EA puts out patches and tuning to gameplay all the time. I'm assuming it would not be different with this title. I'm not expecting them to add things such as "weather" or the second ball display which probably take a lot more work to put into the game but I'd expect that can make a lot of minor fixes to the gameplay.

I haven't played the game yet but I wasn't under the impression that the game is totally broken but only that some aspects could use some tweaking.

[AuditMonkey]

I planned on pre-ordering, I was so looking forward to this game... until I heard about the lack of courses. I have no problem buying DLC course packs but 8 real courses is absurd to me. After reading the comments on the trial, I'm not seeing anything that tells me I need this game. I will be waiting and sticking with TGC for now I think. At least until I see something cool from this game and end up impulse buying it (which I'm positive will happen).

[sroz39]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Trial Available Now on EA Access, Post Your Impressions

Just went and paid off my pre-order. Watched alot of streams yesterday, including Millennium's last night, and there was nothing that made me change my mind about getting it.

Were there aspects that were varying degrees of disappointing? Absolutely. The largest one is the lack of difficulty. 13 and especially 14 gave us the tools to make the game tough and realistic. I still play 13 to this day and it's still very rewarding to shoot a bunch under par. The part that bugs me about this game (granted, without having played it) is you have Arcade, Classic and Tour gameplay styles. Why on earth are they not making stock Tour a grind to shoot well? The main difference I see is the swings are the same but on Arcade you have more tools and info available to shoot crazy low scores.

You're giving the casual fan what he's looking for which is a legitimate birdie opportunity on every hole. So why not, on Tour difficulty, would you not give me all the tools to make the game as tough as I'd like? Why this series just doesn't want to give us a swing sensitivity slider is beyond me. Problem solved! I can make it as hard to hit a straight shot as I want!

Instead, they trick up the difficulty with this tempo nonsense, which is totally unrealistic for PGA Tour caliber players. Watching guys use Rory and miss greens short by 20 or 30 yards is embarrassing. It's not real life PGA golf.

Let me make the game difficult. As it stands, I'm going to enjoy the heck out of it but like every other TW game prior to 13 and 14, shooting 60 becomes the new 70 because it's so simple to do so.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[LincSink]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Trial Available Now on EA Access, Post Your Impressions

I too thought that the "Tour" analog swing was too easy, but I encourage everyone to try 3-click mode (make sure you have shot difficulty set to hard, this is a custom setting!).

I found I missed way more fairways and had to make sure I was missing on the right "side" of the final click. For example, if theres trouble right I have to be if anything a little early with the last click just in case. This is how the pros play in real life to a degree and I found it also helps making the touch tougher in putting. Really enjoying it on 3-click (make sure it's set hard! settings)

[turbineseaplane]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Trial Available Now on EA Access, Post Your Impressions

but I encourage everyone to try 3-click mode

..no thanks - Done with 3 click about 12 years ago and no interest in going back, sorry. :-(

[HANDSWARD_EA]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Trial Available Now on EA Access, Post Your Impressions

Jealous of you guys with Early Access. I have two questions..

1) Do you think there's a guy out there somewhere who makes his decisions on whether to buy a game solely based on the comments on OS?

Follow up question..

2) When do you think the last time he bought a video game was?

I lol'd

[Beelzebot44]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Trial Available Now on EA Access, Post Your Impressions

I lol'd

Can you address the player creation at all? Will there be updates there or is that even possible? It seriously ruins what would otherwise be a pretty good experience.

[OnlookerDelay]

Re: Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR Trial Available Now on EA Access, Post Your Impressions

You're giving the casual fan what he's looking for which is a legitimate birdie opportunity on every hole. So why not, on Tour difficulty, would you not give me all the tools to make the game as tough as I'd like? Why this series just doesn't want to give us a swing sensitivity slider is beyond me. Problem solved! I can make it as hard to hit a straight shot as I want!

They effectively did this in Tiger Woods 10, with its Club Tuner tool. This allowed you to reduce your club's sweetspot and it became in essence, a swing sensitivity slider... I loved it!

Instead, they trick up the difficulty with this tempo nonsense, which is totally unrealistic for PGA Tour caliber players. Watching guys use Rory and miss greens short by 20 or 30 yards is embarrassing. It's not real life PGA golf.

You're right, it does feel a bit "tricked up" to me with the tempo. Calling it "tempo" is a bit of a misnomer in the sense one usually thinks of tempo in a golf swing. The "tempo" required to get a full shot in this game seems to be more on the twitchy side. I was hoping to have a smooth, flowing tempo that was more analogous to a rhythmic swing. The interface is calling for more of what I feel is a "twitch" swing. OTOH, if it wasn't there, the game would be way too easy, even on Tour mode. Still, I fry a bit when I execute what feels like a smooth, properly tempoed swing, and the feedback meter shows that I was 14% slow and the ball comes up embarrassingly short of the target.

Even with my qualms about the swing interface, I gotta admit I had some fun playing the Tour Daily tournament this morning. The leader was -3 and I finished 5th (out of 13 at the time) with an even par 72. Two of my bogeys were on par 5's where I over "twitched" my downswing and hit the ball 6 and 8% fast when trying to reach the green in two. I wound up in unfavorable positions both times.

I'm really disappointed in the "Pro" camera options inability to pick up and highlight the ball as I'm watching it from the golfer's perspective. I was hoping this game was going to be at least as good as Tiger Woods 11, 12, and 13, in particular, were with the way they tracked the flight of the ball when using the True-Aim view perspective. Even with the comet trail, I'm having a hard time picking the ball up from the golfer's perspective after the swing. I hope to see some improvements with this eventually.

Another glaring weakness with RMPGAT is its ball impact effects. I'm not hearing the crisp plink of a well struck shot in this game and it's a real buzz-kill. The Golf Club's ball striking sounds are first class and maybe I've been spoiled by them, but RMPGAT doesn't even come close to matching the ball striking effects from the Tiger Woods series games. Definitely another area for improvement.

Finally, so much of the atmosphere is absent in the online tournaments. You see a leaderboard when you start, you tee off and never see a leaderboard again until the end of the round. You have no idea where you stand, or how others who may be playing concurrently with you stand. One of the few things I liked about Tiger Woods 14 was its Connected Tournaments. You got live, hole-by-hole updates of your fellow competitors progress. You even got to see their shot tracers if they were playing within your view. The online tournaments here seem devoid of other competitive life and atmosphere, outside of the galleries watching you play. This one has me SMH though.

I've learned enough through 40% of my trial period to know that I'm going to hold off buying the game until I see how the PS4 version stacks up. I know fundamentally it's not going to correct the design issues I've mentioned above, but I am hoping it will eliminate the most of the graininess and occasional blocky grass textures I see on the XB1 version, by being presented in what I'm hoping will be a higher resolution.